Socks
by Windschild8178
Summary: Dobby is slightly cracked. Luna is slightly mad. Ron just wants to get a good night's sleep. One-Shot (for now). High possibility of turning into a longer fic.


Summary:

Dobby is slightly cracked. Luna is slightly mad. Ron just wants to get a good night's sleep.

One-Shot (for now). High possibility of turning into a longer fic.

 **SOCKS**

"Socks are Dobby's favorite, favorite clothes, sir!" he said, ripping off his odd ones and pulling on Uncle Vernon's. "I has seven now, sir. . . . But sir . . ." he said, his eyes widening, having pulled both socks up to their highest extent, so that they reached to the bottom of his shorts, "they has made a mistake in the shop, Harry Potter, they is giving you two the same!"

-Dobby the House Elf

* * *

Of all the miserable, good intentions in the world… Ron felt a coming headache as he trailed after the demented, golden hearted house elf. Two of the tea cozy's tilted precariously to one side as Dobby skipped ahead of him, chattering happily about how much 'Harry Potter, Sir' was going to love Dobby's gift. An entire box of right socks, apparently Harry was missing one, and apparently there was a left and right to begin with.

At the beginning of this whole affair, he'd opened his mouth to tell the elf otherwise, but- honestly, why ruin the bloke's fun, eh? Ruining people's dreams was Hermione's gig, not his. Still, when he heard the creature muttering about hosting himself into the laundry shoot and getting passed the curses down in the dungeon, well, he thought it might be best if he went with the guy... elf… whatever.

"What sort of curses are we talking about here?" Ron asked, peering down the narrow passageway. He grunted as he was forced to turn sideways to fit through. Obviously this place was not designed for human travel.

"Oh, nothing too terrible, Mr. Weezy, nothing too bad," Dobby chirped. "They'se meant to keep away moths and bugs, sir, to keep away them bugs that would damage the clothes."

"That's good."

"The floor, it shocks you, sir, as you walk along it, nothing too terrible."

Ron paused, staring at the elf who thought nothing of banging his head into walls and slamming his fingers in drawers, and mentally flinched for the both of them. He should have known this was going to be more trouble than it would be worth. All this for a box of socks.

"Oi! Why don't you let me go first," Ron called, pulling out his wand.

"Oh, no sir! Dobby couldn't do that. Mr. Weezy is a student. It's Dobby's job to take care of all the students at Hogwarts. That's what kind Mr. Dumbledore told Dobby when he hired Dobby, Sir."

"So you can say Dumbledore, but not Weasley?" Ron muttered.

Ron squeezed out of the narrow passageway and into a wide room. He blinked, gawking at the piles upon piles of miscellaneous clothing. It looked like the room of requirements if the place were designed out of silks and robes.

"How do you find anything in this place?"

"Oh, it's not so hard, Mr. Weezy," Dobby snapped his fingers, clothes immediately jumping into the air and rushing towards a giant water bin filled with soapy suds. "Slytherine and Ravenclaw students are more difficult though, they claim we get it wrong, but we don't."

The house elf flinched.

"Spoiled brats, the lot, don't you let them talk down to you, okay?" Ron growled, following the house elf as they made their way through the towers of dirty laundry. When they got to the room of lost clothes (no seriously, Ron asked twice, he was not shitting you, that was its actual name), Dobby stepped inside, eliciting only the smallest of pained whimpers as his multi-sock covered foot touched down. Ron hurriedly grabbed the elf, hauling him off the floor.

"Mr. Weezy, we'se gots to get the good, right socks, you mustin' go in there though!"

"Listen, I'm not gonna get shocked, and you don't have to get shocked. This can be a shock free zone, yeah?" Ron said, exasperation rubbing away at his nerves. With a quick spell, he undid the bug free charm.

"You'se not supposed to do that!" Dobby cried, horrified. "Oh, they will not like this, not at all!"

"Shhhh," Ron hissed as Dobby's wail got louder. "It's okay, I'll put it back in a minute! Let's just get the socks, yeah?" He strolled into the room, looking around at all the socks and randomly pulling off the nicer looking ones that didn't look 'too' used. He wasn't sure what Harry would find funnier; the box of socks, or Ron accompanying the house elf to get the box of socks.

He felt a tug at his leg of his pants. Looking down, Ron saw Dobby's solemn eyes staring back at him.

"Mr. Weezy, that one is a left sock."

Ron looked at the black sock.

"Uh, huh."

"How bouts Dobby get the socks and Mr. Weezy look for a box?"

"Probably for the best."

Ron walked out of the room of lost clothes and straight in Luna Lovegood.

Ron was an honest kind of guy, so he'd be up front about this, he yelped. It was not pretty and he likened the sound to finding a spider in bed with him upon waking. This sound was not at all encouraged by the large bug eyed, strange glasses Luna was wearing, nor the web like fishnet thing upon her head.

"Hello Ronald."

"What are you _doing_ down here?"

Luna pulled off a piece of every color rainbow gum from a stack of papers, the candy turning from green to red as it stretched out between the two of them. It came off, but left specks of rapidly changing spots on the top page.

"My dorm mates threw my assignment for McGongal down the shoot. The house elves would have returned it to me, I'm sure, but the paper is due tomorrow and I thought it best to get it myself. The House elves do get quite busy, you know."

"I don't think any of my dorm mates have gotten mad at me to do that," Ron muttered in disgust, "so what happened?"

Luna blinked at him from behind her overly large glasses.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, no."

"There's nothing ordinary about you."

"That's exactly it."

Ron sighed, giving up on trying to understand and instead pulling out his wand again. He muttered a gentle cleaning spell, the same he used when he spilled ink across his paper. Lifting off only what was unnatural. He'd gone through about a dozen cleaning spells before this one. Soaking one paper, wiping off 'all' the ink from another (including the essay itself), one that for some odd reason set the damn thing on fire, and another that tore it to pieces. The final word of the spell caused the pieces to lift off like the used pieces of eraser, rolling into a ball and sliding off the page.

"We're collecting socks, want to help me find a box?"

Luna beamed at him. She was probably the only girl in the world who would. Also the only one who wouldn't question it.

"What size are we looking for?"

What _size_ are we looking for, she asks- Ron chuckled to himself.

"I think we'll have trouble finding one, let alone a variety."

Luna looked around, as if only now realizing they were below even the dungeons, surrounded by nothing but cloth.

"I think you're right."

They looked around the room for a while, finally managing to scrounge up a dust infested, hole diseased looking hamper. Ron cleaned it while Luna took a Ravenclaw's dress shirt and spelled it around the hamper to make it look nice. She seemed far more pleased with the transfiguration of someone's shirt than someone ought to. He wisely chose not to ask who the family crest belonged to.

They finished around the same time Dobby came out, shit eating grin on his face, as he showed them, sock by individual sock, the collection he wanted to fit inside the hamper. Faced with disappointing the poor creature as he went back into the room to get more, Ron magicked the bottom of the hamper to expand on the inside.

He doubted Harry would ever need to go shopping for socks again.

Whether Harry would want to though…

Dobby happily dropped a vomit yellow sock into the hamper.

… was another story entirely.

"You have very good taste, dear sir," Luna told the elf.

Dobby practically preened.

"You is very kind madam."

The pair grinned at each other, and Ron swore on his mother's life, they broke the lights.

"Lumos!" Ron raised his wand, bringing the three back into illumination. "What the bleeding…"

"How odd," Luna interrupted, squinting along the walls at the suddenly absent lanterns.

"Oh, they'se upset! I told you they'd be upset!"

"For the love of… it was a bug curse!"

"Dark wizards have tried to get in through the dungeons before. They'se use the curse to alert them!"

"Why didn't you tell me that before!"

"Is tried, Sir!"

"You did not!"

"What is the meaning of this!"

Ron and Luna turned to see Snape striding forward, the narrow hallway's walls leaping back to allow the Potion's master through.

"Ah, bugger."

"Ten points from Gryffendor for language. As for trespassing into restricted areas of the castle and canceling out spells against intruders…"

"It's the laundry room! How is that…!"

"Silence! Twenty points from Gryffendor for disrespect, Mr. Weasley, now, unless you see fit to lose your house more points than this… grievous error has already garnered, I suggest to follow me."

Ron sent Snape a dark look, but shuffled behind the teacher alongside Luna and Dobby. The house elf was shaking like a leaf, his ears down against is head like a dog. Ron put his hand on top of the small elf's head. When Dobby looked up, Ron tried for reassuring.

"It will be fine," Ron whispered.

The house elf nodded, squaring his shoulders. A sudden confidence overtook the elf that had Ron balking. The little creature strolled ahead of them. He exchanged looks with Luna. The girl nodding her head in understanding. Ron understanding he would never understand either of them.

The walls leaped back to allow them through. Ron watched, marveling at how much easier it was to get back up through the castle than it was to get down. Up ahead Snape skulked, but there was a thing on his face that Ron would swear was as smile if it weren't quite so nasty.

"I think thirty points will suffice from Gryffendor and Ravenclaw," Snape began with a drawl. Fury engulfed him. Ron opened his mouth, but Snape simply raised his eyebrow at him, as if begging him to say something. He closed it, thinking of how many points Harry had already lost them this year in his little war with Umbridge. "And," Snape added, manic glee in his voice, "detention is in order. Three nights, I think, come to my office at 9 o-clock sharp tonight."

Miserable, greasy, foul, bloody git.

"Do you need us to bring anything professor?" Luna spoke up, she smiled dreamily at Snape, the man eyeing her like a particularly distasteful potions mess up.

"No, you will not be needing your wands."

"If Dobby may, Professor," Dobby spoke up. Snape sent the creature a withering glance, but the house elf didn't seem to notice. "Mr. Weezy and Miss Luna only came to help Dobby. Dobby will take their punishment. It was Dobby's fault."

"Dobby," Snape sneered, "hardly controls himself, let alone two Hogwarts students, get out of my sight."

The house elves ears went back against his head again, his eyes shining with hate Ron had never seen in the creature before.

"Dobby is free to stay and go as he pleases."

They were outside the entrance now. At the lowest levels of the dungeons. Snape looked down his long nose at the creature before turning on his heel and walking away.

Ron whistled in awe, staring at down at Dobby in surprise. Would wonders never 'cease. The little guy was mental, absolutely no doubt about that, switching back and forth between cowardly and brave in the span of seconds, self-abuse and self-confidence, he really didn't know what to make of it.

"If I could," Luna spoke up, "I would put a varnatelia under his bed."

"What's a varnatelia?"

"It's a plant that exudes a non-lethal poison, slowly over the course of six months. It causes nightmares, fatigue, and, for some odd reason, the swelling of one's ass hole."

"Luna," Ron said honestly, "you are truly starting to grow on me."

She grinned, white teeth flashing at him, before ducking her head down.

* * *

A/N:

Stay Standing, the last three (separated into five final chapters due to length), will all be posted this Thursday.

So, White Queen, the other ONE-SHOT I published tonight was all inspired by a writing challenge I entered into.

Check it out here: theprose post /91383 /manifest

You'll have to type it in, of course, as I had to separate it with spaces in order to get it to show up. But like it, follow it, share it.

I thought this might be a nice little gift for you guys as I've been a nuisance in the backside in concerns to posting. I'm still alive! Believe it or not. Just stressing out and working on internships and on my Senior Thesis for Graduation that feels like a million years in coming. BUT it's almost over people! A plethora of Fanfiction awaits!


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